THE ROLL CALL
The Roll Call ON MEN AND MEASURES Organizing for Progress TIME: February 5, 1908; Place: United States Capitol at Washington. Word passed through the corridors that a young Congressman from...
...Why not consider amendments to the antitrust laws, in order to strengthen the Department of Justice in the prosecution of some of these gigantic combinations that oppress the people...
...The indifference aad derision, with which the votaries of Cannonism had greeted the young Congressman from Wisconsin, changed to serious concern and cordial antipathy...
...It was not a long speech...
...It controls the appointment of Committees...
...A railroad bill drawn by friends and attorneys of railroads for the railroads was reported for passage out of the House Committee on Interstate Commerce, with only the more obvious of its vicious features eliminated...
...At the next Congress, the same old motion will be made to adopt the rules...
...But they did not know the Nelson genius for organization...
...It can prescribe by rule when a measure shall be in order—how it shall be voted on, with or without amendment or debate...
...It is true that the rule of the committee must be approved by a majority of the Members...
...It can nullify all rules...
...Why not consider an income tax, as recommended by the President, to adjust the burdens of taxation among the people...
...At the opening of the Sixty-First Congress, Nelson voted against Cannon for Speaker, voted again against the adoption of the old rules, voted against the Cannon-Dalzell special rule which made impossible tariff revision in compliance with the party pledge and the demand of the people...
...In the achievement of this organization, the handiwork of Nelson was seen not alone by the Insurgents but by the "leaders" of the Cannon machine...
...The question before the House was government in the interests of the people—the enactment of legislation in the public interest as demanded by President Roosevelt, as against Standpattism in the interest of the System as being enforced by Cannon and the System machine under the rules of the House...
...Because this committee, with the Speaker as Chairman, has, in itself power in many ways to induce Members to vote that way...
...And he was right...
...Then came the great battle of last March, culminating in victory for the Insurgents and the adoption of the Norms Resolution—the beginning of substantial reform in the House rules...
...The young Congressman, meanwhile, was warming to his theme...
...Again, he voted for the forest reserve conservation bill...
...That resolution became the basis of the resolution in which, later in the same Congress, he joined with twenty-eight other Progressive Republicans in presenting in the House...
...Nelson was active throughout the re-making of this measure by the House...
...John M. Nelson is returned to Congress to carry forward the great movement in which he has had such a leading part to his own credit and to the glory of wisconsin and his district...
...The same may be said of all vested interests and vested wrongs...
...They have made him conspicuous fob courage, foresight, and integrity...
...Why not revise the tariff, to the extent at least of removing the protection now afforded to some of the notorious trusts and combinations of the country...
...Even Members of the House drifted with an obviously assumed aimlessness "from the comfortable corners of the cloakrooms to their places on the floor...
...A majority of the Members of the House were with the President, and were for his policies...
...Why not empower the Interstate Commerce Commission to fix a valuation of the railways of the country, in order to ascertain the only proper basis of rational rate making...
...He voted against the Payne-Cannon-Aldrich tariff bill on final passage...
...More were interested to see an exhibition of "nerve," and curious to know what the Cannon machine would do by way of punishing the young Congressman, who had the temerity thus to "speak out in meeting...
...When the opening of the present Congress arrived, the Insurgents, as a result of their cooperation and organization, were prepared in advance to make a real contest against the re-adoption of the Cannon rules...
...Why not consider measures for the suppression of gambling in stock and dealing in futures, practices that depress prices on the products of the people at times disastrously, which gambling spirit everybody recognizes was the cause of the present panic...
...Thereupon followed days of discussion by members of both Houses upon the President's Message, and upon the various measures which he recommended...
...It can even prescribe beforehand the details of a measure to the crossing of a 't' or the dotting of an "It has the power to repress all measures it does not favor, and, virtually, to pass nearly all measures it does favor...
...He voted against the resolution put through by the Cannon "leaders" laying on the table the message in which President Roosevelt urged upon Congress the use of the secret service to detect land frauds and he supported the Roosevelt conservation measure for the creation of the Appalachian and White Mountain forest reserves...
...With the co-operation of the Progressive Republicans in the House, an organization was effected...
...Why not consider an inheritance tax, so as to return a part of the "swollen fortunes" of the "predatory classes" to the people, from whom these fortunes were unrighteously taken...
...The issue was between the president and the rules of the house...
...It controls the right of recognition...
...They have made him conspicuous, too, for the attacks of the System press and System politicians and the System campaign...
...Nelson was made Secretary cf the Insurgent organization, and was charged with the responsibility of keeping the Insurgent Members advised and notified of all occasions when conferences of the Progressives were advisable or questions were expected to arise in the House affecting the common cause...
...It will mean that the adoption of the rules places manacles upon the legislative hands of the Member, places a gag upon his tongue, and clamps upon his brain for all the purposes of vital legislation in the interests of the people...
...other members about him engaged in distracting conversation, some showing their disrespect by ostentatiously reading from books or papers, and one or two breaking into his remarks with interruptions intended to be disconcerting...
...Moreover, he had made a speech against the Cannon rule...
...A general movement of the interested and curious set in toward the House wing, and, presently, the House gallery was filled with spectators...
...The country should know, the Membership of the House should know, what the effect of the adoption of that motion would mean for at least one Congress...
...It was no pleasant task for the young Congressman—the making of that speech...
...But the young Congressman was there to make that speech, and the only net result of the annoyances thrown in his way by those to whom it was unwelcome, was to add a fighting, strident note to its delivery...
...When Congressman Nelson made his remarkable speech, the question of rule reform was not the question before the House...
...But the great immediate power which has for so many years prevented the manifestation of the power of the majority—the power which has kept the control in the hands of the few—is the combination or concert of old Members who, knowing the rules and being skilled in the arts of killing bills without being caught, and of depriving the community of what it wants while exhibiting zeal the other way, are enabled to govern the House and perpetuate their own rule...
...But Nelson went on marshalling the forces of Insurgency, pushing the fight for the people's cause...
...Nelson followed up his speech with the introduction of a formal resolution for revision of the House rules...
...In the session just closed, the Insurgents had made such progress for an unfettered procedure that legislating by the House began to be realized...
...Through it all the young Congressman from Wisconsin was in the thick of the fray, working and voting for the cause...
...Why not enact some, if not all, of the many -policies of the President...
...These are all enlisted on the side of repression...
...A few were interested to hear the House rules discussed...
...He believed that they could be rallied to concerted action...
...Why not pass a bill creating a tariff commission to investigate and report a measure to the next session of Congress...
...Having issued his declaration, advanced upon the enemy, burned his bridges behind him, Nelson proceeded to make war...
...He voted against amendments designed to destroy the bill to protect the traveling public and railway employees by limiting the hours of service of train operatives...
...In the tariff contest, he voted for free oil, free timber and unfinished lumber, and free hides...
...A rallying cry was needed and he had given it...
...He traced the his-tory of the concentration of power in the House, beginning with the selection of a party leader to the Speakership, following with the surrender by the membership to the Speaker of the control of the floor and of the right to be heard, and culminating more recently in the creation of the Committee on Rules appointed and controlled by the Speaker and with the Speaker as its Chairman, "Which," he declared, "has been given or has taken unto itself the control of the business of the House...
...Why not, then," demanded the young Congressman, "take up the consideration of the President's policies...
...His record and the forces which conspire for his defeat should determine the people of the second wisconsin to see to it that...
...Word passed through the corridors that a young Congressman from Wisconsin was making a speech in the House in which he was handling the Speaker and the rules with force and frankness...
...The cause of misrepresentative government in the House was fundamental and it was obvious...
...Confronted by the "leaders" of the CANNON machine, the men who embody power in the House, their features and manner expressive of everything but encouragement for the speaker...
...He had shown some embarrassment at first—it was his first speech in the House...
...Through the present Congress, the fight was carried—forcing a small concession in rule reform in the Calendar Wednesday, pushing the Cannon machine to the extremity of saving itself by coalition with Tammany Democrats, and compelling the Speaker to surrender to the House itself the appointment of the Pinchot-Ballinger investigating committee...
...He voted against all provisions and amendments designed to promote railway consolidation and monopoly and the legalizing of the watering of railroad capitalization...
...before the City Club of Chicago, which had excited wide interest...
...Why not consider remedial legislation in the interest of the people...
...His speeches in the House and his convincing writings on the subject were doing much to remove the confusion and darkness which, in the public mind," enveloped the problem of parliamentary reform in Congress...
...The short session of the Fifty-ninth Congress had passed without any legislative action upon the Roosevelt policies, except the action of Congress in repudiation of Reformed Spelling...
...It was not delivered with great oratori-cal flourish, but when the young Congressman had finished, the CANNON-System machine of the House realized that in its terse, plain words lay a comprehensive and unanswerable indictment of System domination of the House and of the House rules, through which that System domination was made effective...
...The long session of the Sixtieth Congress was passing, and much of it had passed, with Cannon and his committee on rules and his chairmen of important legislative committees assiduously "guarding the bridge" against the passage of progressive measures...
...In theory this seems to be satisfactory, but in practice, is there a man that takes any thought but that as a matter of course the rule will be adopted...
...In the First Session of the Sixtieth Congress Nelson voted against the previous question on the adoption of Cannon rules, and voted against the passage of the Veeeland- and Aldrich-Vreeland-Wall-Street currency bills...
...And he answered, in the language of Speaker Reed: " 'There are many interests which are concerned to perpetuate the rule of the few...
...He voted against the special rule to prevent the House from legislating for postal banks for the people and the passage of which rule made possible the enactment of the House postal bank bill for Wall Street...
...It was amusing to the "old guard," the idea of this young Congressman from Wisconsin, single-handed, charging the ramparts of the House organization—the bulwark of Privilege...
...It cnly awaited a Nelson with the hardihood to declare it to the House and to the country...
...Standing at a desk in the center of the hall, with jaw set and voice aggressively determined, he spoke the result of many, many months of careful, thorough investigation and study...
...Nelson's services for the people since he has been a Member of Concsess have made him conspicuous as a public servant...
...Throughout the contest on the Norris resolution, Nelson never failed to record his vote against Cannonism and voted at the end to oust the Speaker from the chair...
...Meeting the contention of the defenders of the House rules that the rules are necessary to enable the House to "do business," the speaker interposed the unanswerable fact "that fully three-fourths of the business has to be done outside of the rules—under suspension of the rules, by unanimous consent, or through riders on appropriation bills...
...Organization was needed and he set about to get it...
...He is helpless to initiate laws, he is helpless to deliberate upon laws, and he will have only a qualified right to vote, which vote a caucus will at times attempt to control...
...In the beginning of his service he voted against shipping subsidies— against the enrichment of the few at the expense of the many...
...The President, impatient for action in the public interest, had sent to Congress a ringing special message, demanding the enactment of legislation...
...He knew that there were several members of the House who believed as he did...
...Why not consider measures for the control of corporations, which the President says is so needed at the present time...
...There are some who desire * * * that the few shall be so entrenched in forms and usages that they may keep the many entirely out of control...
...The Cannon machine looked -on and smiled...
...The Insurgents in the House, supported by the Democrats, forced changes in the bill in the public interest...
...Nelson knew he would not have to make a lone and futile charge...
...Ever since the slavery question came to trouble the peace of the country, the rules of the House have been framed with the view of rendering legislation difficult.'" And here Nelson issued for himself and for those who believed with him a declaration of war against the adoption of the Cannon rules for another Congress...
...To Nelson's constant encouragement and watchfulness and to his mastery of the rules and to his wise counsel is due a large share of the credit for the achievements of that organization...
...Nor has Nelson allowed the main issue—the fight for great fundamental reform in House procedure and House government —to obscure his perspective or distract his attention from measures of legislation involving the public interest...
...Its attitude was that it, not the President, was running Congress, and its policies, not the President's, would prevail...
...There is probably no Insurgent Congressman whose defeat is moke ardently desired by the cannon machine, by privilege, and by the Powers that Prey than the defeat of Nelson...
...It controls the fate of measures upon which the legislative fortunes of Members largely depend...
Vol. 2 • August 1910 • No. 33
